Part 1: One of History’s Earliest Ethical Vegan Voices: https://t.co/YRDYbIJlzW

However, Abū’l ‘Alā al-Ma‘arrī followed Reason and Justice, and notorious criticized the dogmas, stupidities, hypocrisies, prejudices, superstitions, and sanctioned forms of violence rampant among his fellow humans. He lambasted institutional religion, not only Islam and the shallow forms of Sūfī mysticism (he actually had high praise for authentically devout Sūfīs), but also Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. It was the cruelty of inhumane humanity that made him an anti-natalist, someone who thinks it best that beings not be born at all and that procreation is a sin against the child. Ma‘arrī is today regarded as a pessimist version of a humanist freethinker. The label “humanist” doesn’t fit well, because many of his poems reveal an obvious belief in an awesome, mysterious, supra-personal (not impersonal) Divine Reality as almighty Source and Sustainer of this uni...